Pretty Broken Promises

Chapter 12

I”ve never beena deep sleeper, I”m even less so after being woken by my father with his fists and feet. Maybe it”s all the traveling and the late hour we arrived at her mother”s house, or perhaps it”s having Tessa in my arms again after so long, but tonight I drift off into the deepest sleep I”ve had in a very long time. I don”t count the other times we were in bed over the last year because there was no acknowledgment of our feelings then, at least not on my end. There was always love, but I fought against it so hard, it felt a lot like hate. Now that I”ve let that animosity go, the emptiness inside of me, carved out by anger and distrust, fills with peace and so much love for the woman in my arms. If only I’d known how much better it would feel to forgive than to punish, or that the person I was really punishing was myself.

There’s a risk in accepting peace for people like us. It’s because I let my guard down tonight that the apparent danger sneaks up on me. Tessa seems to notice it before I do, her body tensing, and thrashing around in my arms. She whimpers as she starts to fight off some force I don’t sense nearby. Sluggishly, I try and pull myself out of the depths of my slumber, but for some reason, other than her panic, I don’t detect a threat. I’ve gotten very good at being aware of my surroundings, even in my sleep. No one will ever catch me that vulnerable again.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she chants over and over again. A scream rips from her throat which has the effect of a bucket of ice water on me and I jolt upright.

My eyes try to adjust to the darkness, but I see nothing. Tessa, however, continues to fight against the confines of the blankets that tangle around her legs and torso. Her head rolls from side to side while she continues to beg and plead to be let go.

I lift my hands to rock her awake, and then lower them. She has been avoiding physical contact, and I don’t want to put her in any more distress than this nightmare already is.

“Tessa,” I call out loudly, but she doesn”t wake up. “Tessa,” I say again more forcefully, but still she doesn”t respond.

Deciding I must do something, I gently stroke her cheek. The only thing that does is show me she has been crying in her sleep. Carefully, I untangle the covers from around her body, which does help calm her slightly, but she is still firmly in the claws of this nightmare.

I try shaking her, but it has no effect either. Her body is limp as if all of the fight has gone out of her, so I lift her up and cradle her to me. Rocking her back and forth, more for myself than for her, I run my hand through her hair, brush her cheek, and try to gently wake her up.

Her body starts to tremble, and she whimpers letting me know she hasn”t been released from the hell playing in her mind, and I can”t figure out why she won”t wake up. She didn”t take anything before we went to bed that I noticed. Then I remember that night when Jen and I were with her and I had to pry a pocket knife from her hand to keep her from cutting herself.

I shake my head. No, she wouldn”t drag me to Seattle to make me watch her end it like this. No, she didn”t take anything. Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think she wants to give up. I won’t deny that she needs help, but I don’t think she is suicidal. I take a deep breath and exhale. It comes out of my chest stilted and does not calm me down.

I hold her tighter to my chest. “I really need you to wake up now, Tessa. You need the nightmare to end, and I need to see those big brown eyes.”

And that”s all the time I get before something comes over her and she goes wild, clawing, slapping, shoving, anything she can to get away from me. I”m afraid she”ll hurt herself in the process, so I set her in the middle of the bed and scoot away from her.

Her eyes open and dart around the room, searching for the threat. I can see the confusion on her face, just as mine must have looked when I too, looked for the threat and saw nothing. She scoots until her back is against the wall and pulls her knees up to her chest.

She starts rocking, and I fall back on my ass. I’m completely fucking useless because I don’t know how to help her. I hold my hands up so she can see that I am not going to hurt her, which fucking stings that she might even think I”m a danger to her. But one look in her wide-open eyes, and I can tell she”s not seeing me. I don”t think she”s seeing anything in this room at all.

“Tessa, baby, it”s Ford. Sweetheart, I need you to come back to me.” She blinks and turns her face slowly to me.

“Ford? What happened?”

“You had a nightmare. Do you want to talk about it?” I ask her.

She shakes her head emphatically, and then stops. “I don”t want to talk about it, but I think I have to.” Her voice is rough as if she’s been screaming for days. I feel shredded inside, and something tells me it’s all going to get so much worse.

“You don”t have to do anything. I will never make you do anything,” I swear to her. I mean it. Even though I believe she needs to get this off her chest, I won’t force her to do it. Whatever she tells me has to be offered up willingly, or it will just be another scar inside of her. She’s got enough of those inside and out.

Tessa nods. “I know. But you”ve been wanting to know why I”ve been holding you at arm’s length and I think after tonight I”m at one of those ‘rip the Band-Aid off’ moments. I keep saying it”s because I want to take our time and get to know each other again, or any of the other bullshit reasons I come up with, but the truth is I”m scared of how you”re going to react when I tell you what I have to tell you.”

“It can wait until morning. You need to get some sleep,” I argue.

Despite the purplish circles under her eyes showing me she doesn”t sleep very much either, I know she”s going to argue with me. “Yeah, there”s no way I”m sleeping after that nightmare. I can never go back to sleep after one of those.”

“How long has it been this way?” I ask her.

She looks toward the window and climbs out of the bed. She crosses the room to her closet and digs out a large sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants. I”m about to insist she wear something of mine, because I”m not about to have a heart-to-heart with her wearing one of Bennett’s sweatshirts, but then I recognize it as one of my high school football sweatshirts. She must have taken it with her when she left.

Tessa follows my eyes, looks down at the sweatshirt, and even in the low light, I can see her cheeks redden. She shrugs. “I told you I never intended to leave you, just give you space.”

I march across the room, grab the bottom of the shirt, and tug her to me. “I”ve had all the space I could ever want in this lifetime.” I”m careful with her. There”s still a wariness in her eyes every time I get too close or try to touch her.

“Put on something warm,” she insists and skillfully extracts herself from my reach. “And if you have something against getting wet, there are umbrellas in the downstairs closet.”

“I much prefer making you wet. Your way is a lot less fun,” I grumble.

She squeaks but otherwise doesn’t acknowledge my dirty comment. I am just trying to gauge how far I can push her, and what’s more, pull her back to me.

I skip the umbrella, but I did pack a waterproof windbreaker with a hood and I throw that on over my sweatshirt. She takes no precautions, just as I expected. We walk through the house silently, even though we’re the only ones here. She grabs her keys, locks the front door, and we walk out into the dark toward the edge of a cliff.

As we get closer I can see it”s a small park with a lookout spot. Further down there”s more of an open area that looks like a classic park, but the spot she chooses looks like you”re sitting on the edge of the world looking out on the city. I can see why she likes this spot. From here, you can feel both alone and part of something. I can”t, however, understand why we are sitting in the rain.

Tessa turns her face up to the sky and sighs as the precipitation gently falls on her skin. She”s not a religious person, but this looks as close to a spiritual moment as I”ve ever seen her have. She breathes in the rain as if the answers are falling from the sky, and when she exhales, I know she”s preparing to tell me whatever it is that I both need to know and don”t want to know at the same time.

Without looking at me, she pulls up the sleeves of her shirt. The moonlight casts a glow that makes the scars on her wrists and forearms stand out as silvery lines against the rest of her skin. Then she traces another pair of scars that encircle both wrists. She sees me looking at them and drops her finger.

“Rope burns,” she says, confirming what I had asked many weeks ago. She clears her throat. “I know it”s still a question for everyone how I ended up at that horrible party where Raven was almost attacked by Jesse and Kyle. I know how it looked because I know how Jesse wanted it to look. He wanted you to think I was there helping him. That I was complicit in the plans to help him separate Raven from the rest of you. And since all he knew about me was the reputation I had with all of you, of course, he assumed that would be believable.”

She bites her lip and takes a deep breath in through her nose. “After that horrible weekend at the cabin, I?—”

There”s a long pause as if she”s not sure she wants to divulge everything that happened during that time. I”m not sure I”m strong enough to hear it. We did a lot of damage to each other, perhaps too much to undo, but I”m sure as hell going to try. I just hope she”s going to try with me.

“You kind of fell off the face of the Earth after that weekend, Vixen.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I”m real sure you were looking for me.” She might not realize it, but there”s still some bitterness in her tone. I’ve been picking up on it, and I need to make her face it before we can get past this.

“You know how Tracy was usually the one who followed after a guy and would be gone for weeks or months before finally showing back up?”

I nod. I”ve been a shitty friend, because the last time she took off, I let her stay gone. She had been playing that disappearing act, in and out of my life for so long, that I just let her disappear. When she did come back, I didn”t make any effort to renew our friendship. I was tired of people leaving me, and I didn”t feel the need to bring her back into my circle only for her to do it again.

“I”m fully aware,” I finally say.

“Right, well this time Lydia decided she was going to follow her heart and get out of town. At first Tracy and I were supportive. She”d always been so secretive about her family life, but we both suspected it wasn”t great. We thought she deserved an adventure. When she didn”t call and didn”t return any calls, we both started to worry. Tracy managed to find someone who knew someone who had seen Lydia. It was so convoluted, but it was enough for her to set out on the road to go find our friend.”

She sighs. “I didn”t worry at first. Tracy had gone out on her own so many times that it never occurred to me. Something bad could happen. And then the shit went down at the cabin, and I tried to get a hold of her, but she didn”t call back. She always called me back. I kind of spiraled after that.”

I narrow my eyes. “What does that mean?”

“That means I”m shit at taking care of myself, and I stopped doing it for let”s say three or four days maybe. I”d have to ask Benji to be sure, but he doesn”t like to talk about it.”

My fists clench. I know he”s important to her. One of her best friends even. Picking a fight with him would not do me any favors. “Why would you have to ask him?”

“Because he”s the one who found me, sitting in a stupor, alone in my apartment, delusional from having starved myself for like I said, an unknown number of days. While Tracy and Lydia weren”t answering my calls, I apparently ignored his. Not on purpose. Most likely because after a couple of days, my phone died and I never charged it. He wasn”t having that though, and he just came and got me. But none of you seemed to notice or care that I wasn”t even in the state.”

“I don”t understand. How did Jesse know you weren”t in Playa?” I can tell immediately that was the wrong thing to ask.

Her usually warm, chocolate eyes harden and darken to jet-black orbs. She practically jumps off the bench and paces in front of me. “If you really believe that I would ever help that slimy piece of shit, why are you sitting here with me right now? Do you really think I would be alive if Sin thought I helped him? How is it a stranger can see so clearly what has been going on and you are so fucking dense? I already told you most of this shit. You know he had me taken from Seattle. I’m sure somehow they got the information from Tracy or Lydia, and after my time with them, I don’t blame them in the least.”

It isn”t that he knows something I don”t. It”s that I haven”t been able to accept what is right in front of me. Ignorance is a defense mechanism, but it doesn”t matter how I cope with this because I’m not the one who survived whatever nightmare she keeps reliving. I’m ashamed to face how badly I failed her.

When she starts speaking, it feels like she’s jumped topics. Her frantic movements match with the radical shift in what she’s saying. “I had a job at this coffee house. I”ll take you there later. The owner is this really cool grunge chick who was big in the music scene back in the nineties. I first worked there in high school, and when I came back with Benji, she hired me back no questions. I was really settling back in. He forced me out of the house and I was starting to?—”

This one hurts. “You were starting to get over me.”

She nods. “Eventually, you have to learn to let go of the things that only bring you pain. That”s what everyone kept telling me at least.”

“And that”s all I did, bring you pain?” I know the answer is yes. Listening to this, I don”t even know why she bothered bringing me here. Looking back over all of our interactions since she walked into Carlo’s bar after being gone from my life for about a year, I have to admit, I don”t come out so good even in my own memories. I don”t know why she has given me chance after chance. I haven”t earned a fucking one of them.

“Keep going,” I rasp. I”m still going to fight to keep her, but I need to know how big of a fight I”ve got ahead of me.

“One day I got a call from Tracy, she was begging me to come back to Playa to get you to bring your new friends to Jesse’s. She knew at that point that my influence over you was less than nothing. She stood a better chance than I did. I didn”t understand it at first, but she told me that Lydia had gotten into some trouble. The guy she had been seeing had basically been holding her captive, and once Tracy got involved, she was being held hostage too. She just kept begging me to do what I could to help get them free. Basically, she was desperate and hoped if you wouldn’t do it for me, you’d at least come to her rescue.”

She told Jen and I most of this, just not in as much detail. Still, I need all of it. “You could have called me. I would have known something was wrong. I would have?—”

“Trusted me? When have you ever done that? But to answer your question, how about I try it right now?” She pulls her phone out of the kangaroo pocket of my old sweatshirt, shows the screen as she pulls up my phone number, and hits send. It doesn”t even ring once before it goes straight to voicemail.

“For the record, I did try and get help. Hell it was those plans that eventually saved my ass, because you still left me there.”

My hands start to shake, and not because of the chilly night air. I haven’t let my mind travel down this path. She’s right, I joined the guys in rescuing Raven and didn’t give Tessa a second thought.

She holds up her arms again, showing me both wrists, and the very obvious scars that go around each one. “I tried to call Shane after you, but he wouldn’t let me get a word out and hung up on me. I didn”t have anyone else”s number, so it was on to plan B. Benji was working on getting mercenaries to go and free Tracy and Lydia, and while he did that I went to work. I never had any intention of stepping foot in Playa myself at all.”

“And what you perceived as me trying to separate Sin from Raven, I was trying to get to you, dumbass. That bitch Poppy was assigned to watch me. If I stepped one foot out of line one of the drugged-up goons upstairs would hurt Tracy.”

She exhales, and seems to get distracted. “Do you know if she’s dead yet? I would very much like her to be dead.”

I shake my head. “I haven’t actually kept track of her. I thought she was just a drugged-out whore that Jesse used. I can ask Sin.”

“Nah, I think maybe I’ll ask Raven,” she muses.

“Great, I’m sure Mrs. Psycho will be just as much of a help,” I grumble. I really don’t want her to get mixed up anywhere near their world anymore. She’s suffered enough because of it. We all have. Not that I blame our friends, they were in a fight for their lives, but I am fighting to save the woman I love from losing her sanity and her soul.

“Anyway, I was trying to signal somebody that they needed to go upstairs. But I hadn”t slept in three days and I wasn”t doing a good job of getting anyone”s attention. I just wanted someone to go find Tracy and Lydia so I could get the fuck out of that house. As far as Raven is concerned, I knew she had knives, Shane had mentioned it in one of our talks. He told me about her skills and habit of carrying weapons. I heard she knew how to use them and I hoped she could at least give me a window of time so I could get the two people who did not have knives some help. I’ll admit, I didn’t exactly like her at that time, but I would never have wished on her the hell I’d been trapped in.”

She clears her throat and continues. “They kept Lydia drugged. She was allowed to wake up every few days but otherwise, she was kept in a medically induced coma. Tracy had been there for a month. She did not have the luxury of being knocked unconscious.”

“And you?” I force myself to ask.

She looks away, her eyes fixed at some distant point over the city. With her arms wrapped protectively around herself, she says, “I lived through three days of hell. I don”t think you really want to know the extent of it.”

“No, I don”t want to know, but just like you feel you have to tell me, I feel like I have to know,” I say copying what she told me before we came out here. My stomach rolls knowing that I wasn’t the one who saved her. That is supposed to be my job. I am starting to understand why Bennett feels like she’s his.

It’s bad enough she got taken, but I fucking failed her twice. Even if she could forgive me for not knowing she was taken, I don’t see how she can ever overlook me leaving her there.

When she speaks again, her voice is very quiet. “They stripped me, beat me, raped me in every way you can imagine and in ways that I didn”t know were possible and filmed it. It was a never-ending hell that repeated over and over and over for three days. When I say they, I don”t mean just Jesse and Kyle. I mean dozens of guys. Anyone they wanted to impress or entertain. I lost track, just like I lost track of time. I know it was three days now, but it seemed like the equivalent of falling down a bottomless hole. There was nothing ahead of me except more agony. I couldn’t fight back, and by the time I was sent down to the party, I had to force each step, reminding myself I had to save Tracy and Lydia because all I wanted to do was find a way to end it. In a lot of ways, it feels like I”m still there. I don”t know that I”ll ever fully leave that place. It doesn”t matter that Kyle and Jesse are dead. Lydia walks around like a ghost, Tracy has half the bravado she used to, and I”m just broken.”

With that final statement, she lowers her arms and absentmindedly strokes some of the scars on her wrists. That answers the question of when that started.

I clear my throat and jerk my chin toward her hands. She realizes what she’s doing and drops them like they’re burning. “That’s when you started cutting yourself, isn’t it?”

She nods. “There’s just so much pain and noise inside of me. It feels like I’m filling up with poison, and if I don’t release it I’ll die. I know you must think that I’m doing it because I want to die, and I won’t lie to you and say that there haven’t been times that I looked in the mirror and wished I never made it out of that house, but that’s not why I cut. It’s my way to keep living.”

“You say that in the present tense,” I remark, letting her know it didn’t escape my notice.

Tessa pulls her bottom lip between her teeth. “I struggle every day not to. It’s been a while, but I have done it since you and Jen caught me. Benji had me in therapy, but?—”

My hands shake in the need to kill someone who is already dead and it makes me feel a rage that I can”t do anything about. One thing I know they died too quickly. I can’t do anything about my other opponent, Bennett, whom I seem to owe a larger debt to than I can ever repay. Even if I know he didn’t do it for me. I still hate the fucker though.

“You were in therapy until my dumb ass got blown up, and you had to come back, am I right?” I ask.

She looks at the ground, and I can see the battle inside of her. The love and hate she has for me. The fear of losing me, and of taking me back. Most of all, I see the confusion. My poor Vixen is so lost in her own pain she can’t sort out what she’s feeling, so she has resorted to pushing me just far enough away that I’m as stuck in this limbo as she is.

Finally, she speaks. “I was really scared. As much as we’ve done to each other, I guess I never thought we were really done. Death is pretty final.”

Slowly, she turns her head to look at me. “So now you know. It”s a lot to deal with and I know that I come with baggage now that I didn”t before. Like I said, I”m broken. I can”t even stand for you to touch me. And I don”t know when that will change. I scream in my sleep. And let’s face it, I”m used and filthy.”

She scratches at her arms, at the dozens of scars. She is far from healed. That is very clear. It”s also apparent that she needs to resume that therapy very soon. “You are not used or filthy. Let”s get that cleared up right away. What you are is a survivor. And as far as your baggage, honey, we both have baggage, we always have. That”s not going to scare me away. I believe this is part of why you have been holding me at arm’s length, but it is not the only reason. It”s not even the main reason.”

Tessa stops pacing in front of me. The rain is pouring harder now, and my sweatshirt hangs heavily off of her thin frame. I can see the exhaustion that goes deep into her bones. I wouldn”t call her broken, but she’s definitely breakable. Her nostrils flare, and she is ready to argue with me. Good, because she will need the added steel in her spine to face this to the end.

“I can”t stand to be touched. It makes me remember and I just can’t. I close my eyes and I see it and I smell them, and—” Her voice cracks and grows quiet. “I feel it.”

She sucks in a lungful of oxygen. “You think you can tell me these aren”t the reasons that I”ve been holding you away? I keep telling you I”m not ready. You”re not listening to me.” She’s almost yelling at me now, but I can’t let her stop yet. She said she needed to get this out, and it seems I’m going to have to pull it out of her after all.

I shake my head. “Okay, you”re not ready. I never said we had to rush. Just spend time with me. You”re okay spending time with Bennett.”

“But that’s different,” she says. She’s confused now. She didn’t expect me to have anything of substance to press her on.

“How? He”s a guy. He wants a romantic relationship with you too. I assume eventually he would also like to have sex with you. How is that any different?”

“Because,” she says. Her voice is weak now, and she’s losing hold of this lie she’s been telling herself.

“Because why, Tessa?” I press.

Her hands go up to her hair and she pulls slightly at the roots. “Because I”m not mad at him,” she screams.

“And that is why you”ve been holding me at arm’s length. My question is, do you love me more than you”re mad at me?”

I hold my breath and wait for her to answer. She looks resigned and ashamed. “Against my better judgment, yes.”

Tessa exhales and sits beside me once again on the bench. “God knows I”ve tried not to. I kept telling myself to love what was good for me. Yet here I am screaming at you in the rain, still in love with you, even though it hurts.”

“I promise you, Vixen, this is the last time I”m going to ask for another chance because I will never need another one. This time I”m gonna get it right.”

“I don”t want your pretty words. No more pretty promises, because you”ve broken enough of those.”

“Then what can I do?” I drop to my knees in front of her. Sin told me to lay my pride at her feet. I need her to see that this time it will be different. My words sound almost pleading, because if she pushes me away this time, I know she won”t be coming back.

She looks down at me and I don”t see trust in her eyes, but I see a desire to trust me. I can build from that. “I want you to hold me. And the next time that I need you and I call, you better fucking be there.”

“That won”t be hard, because where you go, I go. We are never going to be apart again,” I tell her.

She bites her bottom lip. “I don”t want to live in Playa anymore. I want to give us a try, but I can”t live there. I know maybe you didn”t understand before, but too much bad has happened to me there. I just can”t. I want to move back here.”

I rise to my feet, and hold my arms wide. This time she doesn”t hesitate to step into my embrace. I wrap my arms around her and put my chin on the top of her head. “Then I guess I better get used to the rain.”